Startup of the week: Tictrac

Startup of the Week is a new feature on Wired.co.uk which
aims to highlight some of the most innovative businesses emerging
across Europe.

Tictrac is a personal
analytics platform that provides a place where you can track all of
your activities, sync your data from across the web and analyse it
through a single interface. Wired.co.uk catches up with founder and
CEO Martin Blinder.

What is your USP? Tictrac provides a place where you can track all your
activities, sync your data from all over the web and analyse it
through one powerful, intuitive interface. We empower our users to
gain unique insight and discover new things about themselves in a
way that was not possible before Tictrac.

Where did you get the idea for the business? Back in early 2008 we were working on a project for Google. At the time we were very busy
developing gadgets (mini web apps) for iGoogle. These were the
precursors to the mobile apps we know today.

One of the apps was an alcohol awareness tool which enabled users to keep track of
their alcohol consumption and see how many calories they were
consuming from drinking. It was quite compelling because by
entering what you drank the night before at the pub for instance,
you could quickly see just how many calories you were consuming.
The "drinking makes you fat" argument is more compelling to
30-somethings than the "drinking can cause cancer". That's
when the idea struck: What if you could do this for any aspect of
your life?

Have you taken any investment?Yes, a seed round from trusted angel investors.

What's the biggest misconception about your
business? That people need to be actively tracking activities to
get insights on themselves. By syncing with the various services
you're already using like Facebook,
Google Calendar, Gmail, Foursquare, Twitter and more, a
user can immediately discover things about themselves. Imagine
looking back at your check-ins over the last month and noticing
exactly how many times you've eaten out -- most of us underestimate
how often we eat out or spend on this activity, not to mention its
potential affect on our weight, cholesterol etc.

Imagine then comparing this number with a socioeconomic group
similar to yours to see if in fact you do eat out more than most
people of your age, salary and location.

What pushed you into launching a startup? The incessant itch to create. There is no greater
satisfaction than seeing your imagination become a reality -- and
then seeing complete strangers using and getting value from it.
When you launch your own startup, every single action, from drawing
up the first use-cases, to setting up your hosting, to making the
first piece of functionality live is an accomplishment that feeds
the desire for the next action. Succeed or fail, it's one of life's
most rewarding and educational experiences.

What has been the most challenging time for the
company? The biggest challenge has been to make many different
data sets compatible and meaningful for our users. Data needs to
tell a story about something -- that is its mission. As a platform,
Tictrac works with many moving parts, pulling in data from
countless sources and presenting it in a simple, clear way. Our
users should intuitively be able to see how their running may be
affected by the weather, or how their daytime spending may be
affected by their level of stress, which in turn is affected by the
number of emails they receive… Getting the system to make this
experience seamless has been our greatest challenge and
achievement.

How did you overcome that? With time, and many, many use cases. Among the founders
we've got very different perspectives from very technical through
to product and marketing. Everything needs to start at the user
experience -- then we work back from there. The backend serves the
user. The user informs the backend.

Do you have any advice for dealing with potential
investors? It's really like dating, be yourself but don't look
desperate -- the more in demand you seem, the more they will be
interested. Don't sell yourself short, just because it's the
beginning and it appears like you don't have much leverage. Find
investors who bring more than just cash -- great advice and
contacts are worth their weight in gold. Finally, don't take
anything as certain until the cash is in your account -- I can't
stress this point enough.

What is the best piece of advice anyone has ever given
you? "Focus, damnit! Focus!" When you're building a startup,
opportunities start to emerge from everywhere. They will all sound
great at the time. Take one step at a time, consider what
those opportunities may mean for your development path and make
decisions that are aligned with your path. Do not diverge unless
you have an extremely compelling reason, i.e. your users are
telling you so, or a game-changing business opportunity
emerges.

What advice would you give to someone looking to launch
their own business? Know what you're getting into and why you're getting into
it. Do it only if you're passionate about the idea. Take
advantage of any luck that comes your way. Listen to what people
say, then decide if you agree or disagree. Finally, I can't
stress enough the importance of having a great team with
complimentary skills. An idea is something, execution is
everything.

Which business person do you most admire and why?Jeff Bezos, for the way he's managed to navigate three internet
generations -- focusing on long-term value and always seeing
slightly ahead of everyone else. Think how long they've been
offering cloud services, for instance, or how they are the only
true competitor to the iPad/iBook platform.